Rebel Cocktails – By Kris Bahamondes USBG Palm Beach

Everyone has seen cocktails in hollowed out coconuts when they’re on vacation in the Caribbean, but you can bring a small slice of paradise home to warm up the winter with this cocktail.

Procedure: Using a sharp knife cut a circle slightly larger than a quarter into the top of a fresh grapefruit. Using a spoon, remove the pulp and juice creating as much space as possible in your grapefruit. Toss the pulp and juice into a mixing glass.
Add 2 oz.’s Corzo blanco tequila, 1 oz. fresh lime juice, 1 oz. Finest Call Agave and 5-6 mint leaves. Fill your mixing glass with ice and shake vigorously. Strain your mixture into the hollowed out grapefruit.

The key to this cocktail is the eye-catching ice sphere. You can find sphere molds and local stores like bed bath and beyond, sur la table and william-Sonoma. Take any edible flower and place it in the ice mold before filling it with water. Once the ice freezes you’re ready to mix your cocktail!

The Cloudy Blue Sage is one of the most interesting, delicious and beautiful cocktails I have ever had the pleasure of working with. The concept is to take flavorful cocktail and infuse it with fresh wood smoke to add an additional layer of complexity. This drink is best made with a culinary smoking gun, but any way you can find to burn a clean wood and capture the smoke should be effective.

Procedure: In a mixing glass add 2 oz.’s of Tuthilltown half moon orchard gin, 1 oz of fresh apple cider ( not sparkling), 1 oz of fresh lemon juice, and 1 oz of burned rosemary and sage syrup ( this syrup is made by burning rosemary and sage leaves and infusing them with simple syrup).

Add ice to your mixing glass and shake vigorously. Strain your chilled cocktail into a mason jar. With a smoking gun fill your jar with fresh wood smoke and seal the jar. In a rocks glass place one large ice cube or fill the glass with regular ice.

Garnish: With a rosemary sprig and cocktail straw. Serve the cocktail immediately and enjoy as the smoke billows from the mason jar!